This Other Eden

by Paul Harding

Iris said, Vi, it’s not Indians you can’t trust, it’s people. Men, mostly, if you want to know the truth. Maybe white men most of all, I’ll grant— and you know what I mean;plain white; not the color of their skin but the state of their minds, just like being a man or a lady is a state of mind. But it’s a veritable prejudice to say you don’t trust Indians as a rule.

Terrible how terribly good intentions turn out almost every time.

The islanders were so used to diets of wind and fog, to meals of slow-roasted sunshine and poached storm clouds, so used to devouring sautéed shadows and broiled echoes; they found themselves stupefied by such an abundance of food and drink. For that evening it seemed to them as if they were sending Ethan off on all their behalves. And it seemed as if by sending him off to paint his beautiful pictures they all might somehow unhouse homelessness, might somehow bankrupt poverty. It seemed to all of them that evening as if they somehow might even starve hunger itself.

So many hallways and corridors and rooms. Ethan had glimpsed enough of the house’s mysterious, confusing depths passing its lit windows at night. Should Bridget have the devil in her and mean to tease, she could step aside into a doorway behind him, into another dark room, from right next to him, whisper, Find me if you can, and he’d be as astray in that palace as if in primeval woods or a maze in a myth, all the more so for the thickets of lamps, spindly old chairs and glazed vases, alcoves with clocks shaped like little brass pagodas on narrow tottering tables or like wooden cottages atop mantels high as cliffs, a tall case clock at the end of a dim hallway like a giant dozing owl, head bowed, eyes closed, wings folded until he passed, when its eyes would open golden and honeycombed, large as numbered dials, and its wings would unfold silently and reach down the length of the hall and gather him back into their silent depths, more silent than silence because they not only would make no sound but would absorb it from the air and cancel it in their layers, and entomb him at the dark end of the forgotten hallway forever.

I’m queer. I’m queer for my self, for my selfhood, queer for this queer self I find myself to be, queer with strange appetites, and a heart that throbs most queerly. I’m queer for other queers, queer for their shapes and colors and sizes, queer for their tastes. I’m queer for the ruthless sea. I’m queer for all the little queer creatures in the tide pools. I’m queer for the light when it breaks the horizon and queer for it when it sinks behind the trees. I’m plain queer for these people and queer for this world. I’m downright queer in love with this wreck of a world, queer in love with love itself—love’s always queer, always arriving in our hearts from queer nowheres, queering everything—and there we are; wide awake all night, queer as queer can be; queer orphans, queer widows, queer boys, and queer girls; sorrel girls queer for ivory boys, daffodil boys queer for lilac girls; carmine girls queer for sable girls, cinnamon boys so very queer for boys of bluest milk.

EARTH IS THIS SURFACE. Earth is this solid stratum. Earth is the hole or hiding place of burrowing animals. Earth is the soil suitable for cultivation. Earth is the medium by which a circuit is completed. Earth is the ground. Earth is a place for burial. Earth is the present abode of humankind. Earth is wordless and patient and suffered the grave robbers’ spades in silence.